LiveJournal:http://7veilsphaedra.livejournal.comPairing(s): Genjo Sanzo x Toushin Homura TaishiRating: NC-17Disclaimer: This Saiyukifanfiction story is based on
characters and situations created and owned by Kazuya Minekura. The song
"Walking After Midnight" was written by Patsy Cline. No money is
being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.Warnings: Yaoi, lemon, angst, violence, language, drugs, bondage and
noncon.Status: 11,677 words. Complete.

Summary: That which ties Sanzo and Homura to the earth, that
which makes them want to escape, and the matter of escaping.

Author's notes: It's all a figment of imagination. No connection to
reality intended or implied. Many thanks to rroselavy for the terrific beta!
Written for the valentine_smut
Saiyuki community giftfic exchange. Prompt: unfettered No: golden showers/scat play, unlubricated anal sex

i.

The sword, encased in its stone scabbard, held the earth's gravity in its
weight. Even by trailing a finger along the ridge of elaborately carved rock,
Sanzo could tell. Even without lifting it off the two iron posts that welded it
to the foundation of the world. Even without drawing it, although his fingers
stretched and curled around the hilt almost of their own accord, as though in
temptation.

The impulse or, perhaps, instinct to pull it free was very much alive in him,
but he was not ruled by the oceanic swells and troughs of some primordial
experience. No one made the decision to draw such a blade without hesitating,
without first accepting the consequence—the scabbard—that manacle of gravity
which would bind him to the earth. The lake of lava which seethed and glowed in
bloody reds and fiery oranges just beyond the resting sword, heaved at the
touch of his hand, spitting curlicues of molten rock toward the cavern ceiling
with the sound of small explosions and the tang of sulphur, a portent of what
would come should he unsheathe it. He pulled his fingers away, drew back and
contemplated the situation further.

The carvings were not elegant. They were rough-hewn and squared, formed by a
civilization which had vanished into the past, one which bore no more relevance
or connection to the present, except as a signpost of what once was. Sanzo
recognized the style from teaching scrolls kept at the monastery library, from
Hazel's land. There was a purpose to their placement upon the scabbard, although
Sanzo could not fathom it. The symmetry and dulled edges gave him a sense of a
pragmatic, earthy people, rough and forthright, blunt-spoken, masculine, not
distracted by the forms of things — people not unlike himself. The second he
realized that the carvings were probably an indication of when that sword had
last been drawn, all such times rushed through his mind in a cascade of images.
He saw unknown warriors from other eras, other civilizations, confirming his
suspicion. What he couldn't tell was whether these were scenes from his own
past reincarnations, or from something larger, more planetary in scope.

It was the part about being tied to the earth which gave Sanzo pause. The
teachings of the Buddha were about releasing such attachments. Besides, wasn't
the eternal childhood of Goku enough anchor? Wasn't the Journey to the West
enough dharma? On top of which, he already had a perfectly good weapon; one he
actually knew how to use.

The moment of hesitation was now over. This, too, he realized was part of his
destiny. He gripped the hilt and withdrew the sword from the scabbard.

The lake erupted. Sanzo was swept along, unharmed, in the flood of molten rock.
He had no control over where he was carried or how fast it moved him, but the
heat didn't burn him or hurt him. The lava rose, filling the cavern and,
finally, pushing him clear of it. Out from under the earth. Out into the bright
light of day.

Sanzo blinked and pushed Goku's face away from his. They had slept in Jeep
again last night. His back and shoulders were full of knots, muscles cramping.

"How far are we going to drive today? Are we going to stop in a village
tonight? Can we get a meal somewhere? Or are we going to have to camp out
again?"

The barrage of questions blended into the birdsong. With the morning sun
already beating down enough to warm the sand, the air was still fresh and
sparkly. They were in the canyons on the edge of a desert plateau. A bank of
clouds rose to the north: thunderheads, tall and gleaming white. Canyons were
no place to be during thunderstorms. It was safer to take their chances in the
open. Between lightning strikes and flash floods, lightning was quicker.

"There's nothing to eat around here, so I was wondering when we're going
to get some food? Can't you even tell Gojyo's rummaging through your spare jeans
pockets for smokes?"

"I'll have you know it takes a lot of effort to achieve grr—Geez, Hakkai,
watch the hair! Stop winging fruit at me. Here, I thought Goku was the
monkey."

"Ha-ha, what a fine day and aren't you lucky to still have all your limbs
intact in order to enjoy it! Here's an orange for you, Goku, one for you,
Sanzo." Hakkai cut off the squabble by listing off everyone and their
oranges, including the Jeep and himself, and rounding up with a smile.
"Did I miss anyone?"

"What? That's it?" Goku started peeling the fruit. "That's all
we get?"

"That's all we have," Hakkai chuckled, as though low supplies were a
fine joke, "until we get to a town."

Sanzo pulled the edge of the Sutra over his face to block out the sun and,
hopefully, the complaints and quarrels along with it. The dream was fading
fast, before he could fully understand it.

Something was coming. Something big. Something which made the whole business
with Hazel look like kids at play.

"Can we get to a town today?" he gruffed at Hakkai.

Hakkai wasn't quite as much of an idiot as the others. His eyes narrowed at
once in suspicion. "Should be able to. Why?"

Sanzo rose to his feet, tossing his orange over to Goku. "We'd better get
a move on."

iii.

The first time Homura saw daylight, he fell prostrate at its brilliance. It was
too much. He couldn't endure so much light. His eyes watered helplessly. His
head hurt. His mind seemed to melt, unable to process the new information which
flooded into it, bewildered by colours and shapes he had never seen. His eyes
were stabbed by edges and forms which, instead of flickering in the light of
rush-torches, half-hidden in darkness, were now concrete and sharp. The only
way he could get back onto his feet was by keeping his head bowed, away from
the dazzling furnace at midheaven, by keeping his eyes focused on the shadows
beneath his feet.

The other gods assumed this posture was the weight of his shame, just as the
fetters around his wrists advertised the nature of it. It was as though they
expected him to be ashamed of something he couldn't help, something into which
he had been born, ashamed of decisions and prejudices by which he was affected
but of which he had no power of his own to affect. It was as though he was
supposed to feel ashamed of being a child of both earth and divinity, as though
earth and divinity were different, as though they weren't already intertwined
at the deepest possible level. Or would be soon after he had his way with them.

He learned to despise the fools who bared their pointy little fangs at him. They
didn't even have the power to draw blood. He had the power to kill.

It was even state-sanctioned. Even though Homura also despised the Jade
Emperor, he had bestowed this legitimacy upon the heretic, himself, along with
the sword hilt, which looked barren and useless most of the time, but which
bloomed with a live flame whenever Homura held it with intent. He was given the
name, "Lord Flame."

Little did those fools know their nature—Homura's, the sword's, and the
flame's.

Because he strolled around the compound outside the Palace of the Generals at
noon when the sun was at its zenith, and because his eyes were focused upon the
ground, instead of where he was going, he ran into Rinrei.

"Sorry, sorry," she automatically blamed herself and apologized.

She apologized to him.

For the first time since he had been released from his prison, he finally saw
something worth looking at.

iv.

Sanzo managed to tune out his usual backseat annoyances as the ikkou continued
the never-ending road-trip. It gave him time to think about the dream. Dreams
were deceptive, even those from the gods, or probably, in this case, from the
Merciful Goddess, but they were also instructive.

Was the flood of lava the Minus Wave? It certainly had the same frenzied and
destructive sweep, but it could've represented other things as well.

What was the operating principle that would keep mankind safe from the
depredations of demons? How was it that he managed, time and time again, to slam
that inhibitor back over the crown of the demonic Seitan Tasei in full rampage?
A little sleight of hand was required, but he knew that there had to be
something within Goku that let him do it, even if the demon part of him wasn't
conscious of the reason. Reason did not seem to have much to do with a demonic
nature.

"Man, this place must really be out in the sticks," Gojyo began to
complain after the fourth hour, as yet another mirage disappeared before their
eyes. "And I was hoping it would be big enough for me to score a little
action."

"It is isolated," Hakkai agreed. "It's the only speck on the map
for miles."

"Can I see?" The kappa waggled his fingers for it.

"Heh-heh, you will have to take my word for it, Gojyo."

"I just wanna see if there's a place where a guy can maybe score a hand of
poker or two."

"Heh-heh, can't let you do that."

"Aw, why not?"

Sanzo whapped the gimme fingers with his fan. Hard.

"'Cause the last time he let you have the map, you and Goku started
arguing about whether some goddamned lakes looked more like dumplings or dog
turds. Then, while you were bickering, you let the goddamned map fly away, and
we had to drive without one for a month which is how we ended having to hike
over that mountain pass in a goddamned blizzard. Any more stupid
questions?"

Sanzo wished he could figure it out. He wanted so much to be relieved of the
burden of his dharma. He was so sick and everlastingly tired of it.

v.

To Homura, Tougenkyou would always be her grave.

As the tachi followed treadmarks with only the starlight to guide them
across a sprawling plateau cast in deeper shade from its hem of mountains, it
certainly felt like a grave. Its quietude was made all the more hushed and
deathly by an occasional moan of wind through eroded canyons: the wheel ruts
left by the expensive all-terrain vehicle they were tracking the only signs
that someone had passed. As they drew closer to the town, however, streetlamps
grew from distant twinkling stars to small moons, pale and white, and the odd
voice or strain of music was carried to them across the barrens — signs of
life, if ghostly ones. All intimations of Rinrei ended with them, for she was
lost to Homura forever, but there was always vengeance and, that night, they
were in pursuit of it.

The dirt track which was the main road phosphoresced blue. The impressions from
the vehicle's tires stood out against it as clearly as greasy handprints on a
mirror.

Shien primly sniffed, "Old friends, Homura."

A narrower set of wheels had rumbled erratically over the marks. The tachi
had seen these marks many times before. A spicy scent of dragon still clung to
them.

"This could complicate things," Zenon rumbled.

"Let's stick to our purpose, gentlemen," said Homura, and they
slipped into the town without attracting notice from so much as an insect.

There was something wild in the air that night, something that exhilarated him.
His eyes, long accustomed to darkness, could take in the smallest ruffle of
wind across the sands, the dance of a moth soaring up to the stars.

Even though he was bound to his purpose, he felt free. The earthly world may
well have been a pale copy of Heaven, full of the flaws and imperfections of
humanity trying to recreate itself and its world into a less pallid copy, but he
could breathe here and relish the sense of energy flowing through his body.
Here he was free from the constant scrutiny of heaven's administrators. Only
the shackles around his wrists reminded him that he would have to return at the
end of the night and, if he was missed, there would be questions.

After tonight was over, there would questions in any case.

vi.

"It's the last room available and it's right over the bar," the
innkeeper told the ikkou half-apologetically. "I understand you
need your sleep, but you have to know: it's the last Friday of the month and
everyone, but everyone, from miles around is coming here tonight to spend their
paycheques. This is the night we break even from all the other nights when
nobody comes."

"I see." Even Hakkai had stopped smiling. The only one with a grin
plastered over his face was Gojyo.

"So there's going to be a band with live music — loud live music — and
lots of drinking, and gambling, and carousing, maybe the odd roundhouse out in
the yard."

"My back hurts and I need a good mattress. I want a decent night's
sleep," Sanzo grumbled.

"Well, sir, don't say I didn't warn you." The innkeeper held off from
taking an imprint of the credit card. "Are you sure you even want to sleep
here tonight? Because chances are, it will be a whole lot more peaceful out on
the desert."

Sanzo looked around. The place was a hive of activity with more tables being
set up, paper lanterns strung up along the front of the hotel, and a stand with
a microphone and soundboards in the corner.

"Sanzo, I don't care where we sleep, but it sure would be nice to have
something to eat." Goku tugged at his sleeve.

"Now that we can get for you. Every day but two each month, we're the most
peaceful place for hundreds of miles around. On those two days, we're the
noisiest. But on those same two days, we can fix you the best meal you've eaten
in years."

Goku's eyes fastened on the innkeeper like he was the personification of love.
It made Sanzo's teeth itch.

"We'll take the room," Sanzo declared. "But I want to catch up
on as much sleep as I can, so you guys had best leave me in peace."

Gojyo and Goku gave each other high-fives.

vii.

It was easy enough to find the place where all the tracks seemed to lead, a
three-storey inn clabbered together from stacked rocks and chinking, with a
covered porch and false front. Every town seemed to have one, usually at the
outskirts unless the settlement grew up around it. This place had only the one,
and it had a tavern. The tavern was like a bright sun, with laughter, music,
golden light and, once in awhile, some drunkard tumbling onto the deserted
streets, like an inebriated solar flare, when the doors swung open.

Shien checked the building for other possible escape routes, and soon
rematerialized beside Homura, "The garden walls are high and solid, and
the innkeeper keeps his gate padlocked."

Homura nodded, "Take up your positions."

Zenon slipped into the shade of some fruit trees. Shien stood beside a water
fountain where his silvery colour and stillness blended in with the statuary.
Not that such precaution was necessary. The tavern was lively enough to cover
any sounds they made, and they were more likely to attract suspicion by being
quiet and circumspect. Sure enough, Homura soon heard Zenon's growling baritone
singing a low and jeering tune:

"Boys and girls, come out to play. The moon is shining bright as day.
Leave your supper, and leave your sleep, and join your playfellows in the
street."

This was a night for engaging in new transactions and for settling old debts.
Hatred ran through Homura's veins like molten rock.

Homura had been unable to search for Rinrei or make her earth-bound life more
comfortable, but she would've had an uneventful life all the same, had someone
not intercepted and tampered with the Jade Emperor's decree. Instead, Rinrei's
death had been traumatic and bloody, an insult to the gentle spirit that she
had embodied.

By the time Homura made it to earth, the scent of her trail had almost
completely faded. He had gleaned her story in fragments from old neighbours,
wandering tinkers, even in the dens of youkai for miles around. For although
she had been a quiet, modest and unassuming woman, her death was set as an
example to those who had thought of breaking ties with the local crime
syndicate and its leader, known only as "The Fabulist" — and not
because Rinrei had thwarted anyone's ambitions. Far from it, although nobody
deserved the death she was given. The Fabulist had professed a belief in might
makes right. Rinrei was an innocent bystander, someone culled from the
community to serve as its sacrifice, its scapegoat.

Homura knew the choice hadn't been as capricious as it was made to look. He
knew it was a message specifically sent to him, the heretic bastard, heaven's
rebel—one last twist of the blade. It weighed on his heart and mind more
heavily than his chains or his past imprisonments.

Homura and his comrades would soon dispatch the god responsible for her demise;
the jaws of his traps were already closing in. They would slay every last
celestial coward who stood back and watched. He had already seen the visions,
the walls of the heavenly palace painted with their blood, the floor stacked
with their corpses. When he decided upon this course of revenge, he snapped his
chain in two. The loose ends dangled from his wrists in uneven lengths,
rattling against his thighs. This night, however, was set aside for the
exclusive purpose of serving justice upon the agent for Rinrei's death, and for
sending a message back to the original source, both warning and challenge.

It took trickery to lure the Fabulist from hiding. Only by Zenon's skills at
detection had they discovered her weakness, a legendary necklace which once
graced the neck of the Princess of the Stars. Zenon may have been a very
fallible sort of god — and even the gods could be mistaken — but his divinity
shone through when his heart opened to encompass and protect those terrorized by
the Fabulist's regime.

It was Shien's skills at strategy which shaped the trap: tomb-robbers had been
at work in the area, most of them at the gangster's order. Since Shien's
consciousness extended across half an earthly millennia, it was not difficult for
him to recall where secret tombs were laid. The spirits of the dead had left
their remains many centuries past, not so much as a psychic imprint lingering
over the earth, so there was no sense of wrong in despoiling these graves. Most
of their owners were hovering in useless limbo in the heaven world anyway,
although Homura would soon put an end to that. Shien uncovered the barrow of an
ancient lord to send rumours of the newly discovered grave along the Fabulist's
web of informants.

Back while the tachi were removing the treasures, Homura had picked up
an interesting article.

"What is so special about it?" Shien was curious only because Homura
saw fit to examine the dagger more closely.

"An old legend," the taishi explained, memories of his tenure
below the earth rising up to the surface, and of tales exchanged by the prison
guards just beyond the door, their voices emboldened by drink. "A weapon
forged in heaven. The celestial warrior who bore it was attacked by a viper
demon and lost both the blade and his immortal life. The blade is said to be
accursed. It carries the viper demon's poison, but because of its tempering
within the divine fires, the venom cannot be healed by mortal means."

"What is the cure?" Shien asked.

The memory of a meadow filled Homura's mind, of a pretty face wreathed in
smiles, and a lapful of freshly picked—

"Scarlet poppies from the heavenly fields." He instantly lost
interest in the knife and tossed it into the pile of refuse. The tachi
needed the barrow to look like it had been hastily raided, with some treasures
overlooked or discarded as though the thieves' hurried to leave. The poison
this blade had left in Homura was the invisible sort, injected through the
mind, so he would not carry it. Shien and Zenon exchanged looks, but left him
be.

Soon, rumours of a magnificent necklace that looked like the celestial
firmament on a cloudless, moonless night, not unlike this one, had reached the
Fabulist's ears, along with the information that the purveyor refused to
discuss terms with lackeys. She was led by her informants to the desecrated
tomb, and was instantly hooked. Homura would no longer stand back in celestial
detachment as Rinrei's killers went unpunished.

vii.

They ate too much, Gojyo and Goku bickering over scraps like dogs sharing a
single dish.

The fourth batch of spring rolls had gone off. Gojyo was the only one who had
eaten them, grabbing them from out of Goku's reach, and shoving all four into
his mouth at once.

That's how Hakkai figured out the food had been left out too long.

Strong as his constitution might be, Gojyo was laid low by the bugs in his
stomach. Instead of primping himself for hours to get ready for a big night
out, he spent the rest of the afternoon hugging white porcelain. He was in bed
before the sun fell, moaning, a pillow stuck over his head.

Goku laughed at him. Sanzo just told him that if he wanted to bitch, he should
do it out in the yard, because he was tired of getting woken up for stupid
reasons.

viii.

The barkeeper had hired a live band that night, one which played vintage
country-and-western covers, favourites of the locals. The tachi could
hear them ramping up to boisterous cheers, and before long their noise had
drowned out the croaking frogs, the cat-paws of wind that batted through the
leaves, and even Zenon's mocking rhyme.

Yet even over the tavern's celebrations, voices spilled from behind closed
shutters on the inn's second floor — indelible voices, instantly recognizable,
quarrelsome, loud and rude.

"Will you listen to the way they carry on?" Zenon growled from the
shadows. Homura shot him a look. Zenon's lips were stretched over a wolfish
grin, a sparkle of streetlight reflecting off his canines.

"I'm always walking after midnight searching for you / I walk for miles
along the highway …," the lead singer was belting.

Homura waited, listening carefully.

"Man, his right eyebrow is starting to twitch," Son Goku's voice
finally spoke, curiously muffled, as though he was trying to talk around a
mouthful of—

"Goku, I'll have you know I had set that sticky rice aside for Hakuryu's
dinner and I'd like to know where you got the idea it was okay for you to take
it?"

Zenon was openly chuckling now.

"…And as the skies turn gloomy
Night blooms will whisper to me I'm lonesome as I can be."

"There are such things in this world?" Shien finally gasped. "We
are doing these poor creatures a favour."

"Relax." Zenon spat out the toothpick he had spent all night
worrying. "It's not what you think."

"Honestly, Sanzo, must you overreact?" The soap opera continued.

"Hakkai, just give him the goddamned earplugs already!" At long last,
they heard the fourth member of the party. Sha Gojyo's voice was curiously
muffled, as though the very act of speaking was sending him into deep pain.

"Just because you got a touch of food poisoning, don't assume everyone
else must jump just in order to make your life more comfortable."

"You stay out of this, idiot!"

"Yeah, stupid kappa!"

"I'm trying, believe me!" Gojyo's voice came through much clearer
now, as though he had removed a protective covering from his head, although the
words were grit between clenched teeth. "Think for a minute longer,
Hakkai, will ya? It's the last hotel room available in the only hotel around
for miles. If Mr. Sunshine starts blasting holes in it, what do you figure the
odds are on us getting kicked out before the next set?"

Everyone stopped speaking then. Even the tachi stood poised.

Shien quietly cleared his throat, as though unsure if he should ask,
"What, exactly, are earworms?"

"Hunh?" Zenon looked back at him. "Oh — fragments of songs that
won't stop playing in a fella's head. They just keep circling, and spinning,
and recycling over and over until they drive him nuts. You mean to tell me
you've never had that?"

"I can't say that I have."

"Lucky you! Those things can stretch a brain out to the snapping point.
Some types of songs are worse than others. With luck, our Mr. Sunshine over
there is thinking he might need to invoke the Seitan Scripture tomorrow, and
the only words he'll remember are–"

"I stopped to see a weeping willow, crying on his pillow," the
song continued. "Maybe he's a-cryin' just for me."

Two shots rang out.

All three of the tachi froze. Even the Fabulist and her bodyguards
would've heard that.

"Shit!" growled Zenon.

"Geez!" They heard Gojyo say. "Can't you find some normal way to
relieve your stress? Like macramé, or lawn-bowling, or something?"

There was a moment of silence, a moment of blessed reprieve in which everyone
heaved a sigh of relief just before the band struck up, "I was dancing
with my darling to the Tennessee Waltz..." and Sanzo started to curse
nonstop.

Zenon used the ruckus to cover the sounds of his gun being primed. It wasn't
enough. They heard the words, "Shush, you guys!" — And some shuffling
and thumping which was probably the sound of Gojyo leaping or, more likely,
falling out of bed.

"Be quiet for a second," The lamp whose light sent golden stripes
through the room's shutters, was killed. From the corner of his eye, Homura
could see the shutter sliding open slowly, gently, not to creak.

The "distractions" started stumbling and scrambling over themselves
in their haste to leave the building. From the sounds of some of the Fabulist's
bodyguards rushing up the stairs, there was no other place for them to go
except out the window, so out the window and onto the dirt road, they spilled.

Just in time, too. The next moment, Shien took out most of the frontage with
one flick of his whips, which wrapped around the building's two main support
posts.

It was like a grenade. The pillars were yanked out from under their beams. With
a mighty rumbling groan, the entire front fell off: rocks clattered, boards
splintered, bamboos bounced, and windows shattered. Glass, pebbles, and other
shards flew everywhere. A big cloud of dust left everyone coughing, rubbing
their eyes, and wheezing for breath. When the coughing stilled, it appeared
that there were no casualties. Only one old fellow seemed to be upset enough to
weep because his bottle had been shattered by flying debris. Everyone else was
frozen with shock, except for a few of the patrons in the rooms upstairs who
were trying to bunch their bedclothes up around their necks.

"Hey, Homura, almighty war-doofus!" He heard Son Goku call out behind
him. "Looking for a piece of me?"

"Not tonight, Son Goku," he answered, refusing to rise to the taunt.
He had endured far worse in the dungeons of the Jade Emperor.

Without sparing him a second glance, Homura and the tachi strode toward
the hotel. The Fabulist's bodyguards were easy enough to spot — they were only
ones carrying pistols — scrambling to find cover. Zenon was a superb marksman.
He took most of them out with a few well-aimed bursts of his repeater, and the
shots ignited panic through the rest of the bar as its patrons jumbled and
jostled each other in the mad dash to get away.

Lingering at the back of his mind, Homura wondered why Goku or the other ikkou
had not attacked them yet. He sensed rather than objectively knew that Sanzo
held him off somehow.

One woman remained at her seat behind a round table, as though cast in stone,
no signs of distress or panic moving across her face. She sat like a queen,
enthroned, cold, without emotion. Homura thought of Rinrei, who would not have
sat like a queen in the face of her death, who would have been as terrified,
and meek, and mouse-like as the goddess she had been, the one who had trembled
and kept apologizing after he had bumped into her. Rage surged through the war
god and his red sword flamed white as he raised it to strike off this woman's
head, the chains of his bonds clattering and clinking, adding the entire weight
of the planet's gravity to the blow.

Although none of people left in the hotel's ruins were less terrorized, they froze,
enthralled by the primal, instinctual urge to see the woman's demise.

But something held his hand. Homura caught a fleeting moment of something not
right, something even more subtle than the shimmering track where a tear had
run down the woman's face. He instantly lowered his sword.

Zenon stepped forward, seized the woman's chin and lifted her face to the
light. He grabbed her hair and pulled off a wig.

The tachi spun on their heels as one, abandoning the imposter, each
facing a different direction to scan the remaining crowd for the Fabulist. The
women backed away.

"Now, now, miss," he heard one of the ikkou chide.
"There's no need to get pushy."

"Out of my way, fool!" Harsh frustration rang.

All three of the tachi turned toward the source of disturbance as a
knife flashed and caught Cho Hakkai in his shoulder. He cried out and fell to
his knees.

Before Shien could immobilize the Fabulist with his whips, before Homura could
teleport to her side to strike the killing blow, it was already over. Sha Gojyo
had instantaneously materialized his shakujo and sliced off her head. If that
wasn't enough, two seconds later, a blast from Sanzo's pistol punched a hole through
her heart as large as a clenched fist, and one second after that, Goku
shattered her spine with one blow of his nyoi-bou. Homura may not have struck
the killing blow, but she was thoroughly dead. He watched her head bounce
across the hard-packed dirt of the road.

For a minute, there wasn't a sound to be heard. When it finally rolled to a
halt, strands of hair intersected the ghastly white, open-mouthed, open-eyed
relic with straight black striations. Her body was crumpled in a pool of black,
oily blood, dressed in denims and a fringed shirt, a costume from a distant
country. The Fabulist had exchanged places with the country and western singer.

Finally, the priest said, "Tche."

Zenon spat, then lit up a cigarette.

Hakkai was down, and Gojyo was at his side, shaking his shoulders. "C'mon,
you smarmy bastard, don't you dare die on me."

It didn't look good. Hakkai's breath was laboured. Sweat poured from his
forehead, stained his back. Tremors ran the length of his arms.

"How can you die? The wound's not that serious! Shit, you got worse ones
opening that swollen jar of tainted pickles last month."

Homura stepped over. He reached down into the soil next to the struggling man
and pulled out the cursed dagger from where it had fallen, point down. Nothing
would grow in that place again.

"Remove one of his inhibitors," Shien suggested.

The ikkou stared.

"It's just a suggestion," the god sounded bored. "He seems to
require all his strength right now."

Gojyo reached over and plucked one of the clips from Hakkai's ear. A shudder
convulsed through the injured man. He arched his back, let out an unearthly
moan. When his eyes opened again, they glowed green and the pupils had changed
to slits.

"It will only be temporarily effective anyway," Homura informed them.

"What are you saying?" Genjo Sanzo snarled.

Homura cut off a strip off the dead woman's jeans and wound the blade in it
like a bandage. "There is only one antidote for the viper demon's venom.
Unfortunately, after the death of this agent tonight, there is a good chance
that I might be prevented from returning here in time."

"Arrested?" Sanzo asked, eyes narrowing.

"More likely held for questioning."

"And your co-conspirators?"

"Any of the war gods." Homura knelt beside Hakkai and gazed at him
thoughtfully. Then he looked back at the priest. "You, however–"

"Wouldn't I have to die first?"

Homura shook his head. "The biggest danger is that you won't want to come
back. It's very rare that anyone does."

"Is there any other way?"

Homura shook his head. "I can carry you to the Palace of the Generals at
the western gate where my aura will not be immediately detected. You can
proceed to the meadows on your own and collect the antidote. Since you are
under the protection of the Merciful Goddess, you should be fine."

Sanzo's arms were crossed over his chest, defensive and hostile as usual. The
streetlight made his hair and face gleam as though the skin was lambent. The
scroll and robes shone in the pearly light, the black calligraphy of the
scripture so intense it seemed to vibrate.

"Don't do this, Sanzo," Goku begged.

Hakkai gave another unearthly moan.

"The woman's singing was crud," Sanzo decided.

Homura held out his hand. Sanzo reached over and gripped it. Before the astonished
onlookers, they vanished.

ix.

The Palace of the Generals was empty when Homura reappeared with Sanzo, its
soldiers still out on war games. It was a joke to him that they bothered with
such games when he was the only one with any permission to fight. Homura strode
through the airy reception hall with its huge windows and threw open a set that
overlooked a sprawling balustrade. It overlooked one of the heavenly meadows.

"You want the scarlet coloured poppies," he explained. "The ones
which look like tiny flames. Try not to let yourself be seen. It will be —
awkward, if you are."

Sanzo climbed out of the window and was soon thigh-deep in grasses and flowers.

Homura took his seat on the throne to await his return, stretching across it
with one leg slung over the arm, relaxed. It wouldn't take long for the priest
to return, and the taishi was trying to sort through his mixed thoughts
as to the manner of the Fabulist's execution. He had wanted to strike the
killing blow, but the fact that she had died was more important.

In a way, the ikkou had done him a service, although if he was
successful in re-creating a world without the present corrupted leadership of
heaven, then the karma for the killing wouldn't matter. He doubted that the
usual exemptions from fate applied in this case since he had acted
independently. One might even say upon his own selfish desires, and therein lay
the one, white-hot burning ember of his rage: one would say it if one were in
the circle of heartless manipulators who counseled the Jade Emperor. For how
was it selfish to desire the death of someone who caused so much agony to an
artless goddess like Rinrei, someone who had done no wrong, who had only
displayed her heart too openly? Everything within Homura cried out for justice.
It was his nature. It was his dharma, his destiny.

But now another window of destiny opened before him, Genjo Sanzo and the Seitan
Scripture. Only the timing was inconvenient. Sanzo would never surrender the
Scripture willingly, certainly not in exchange for Hakkai's life, even if the
three half-demons in the ikkou were dearer to him than he would ever say
or show. It was just that his own destiny was more dear, and had more at stake.
If the choice was between their lives and his task, Sanzo would sacrifice them
without a moment's hesitation, although — although —

There seemed to be another subtle layer to the priest's destiny, one which lay
beneath this fools' errand in the west. When the god contemplated that idea, a
bright sun shone in his mind.

He didn't like the sun. It hurt his eyes. In his new world, the sun would not
be so bright.

Still, if he took the Scripture now, he and his party would be subjected to
surprise strikes while they attempted to levy their justice. It wasn't really
vengeance unless the gods understood that they were doomed, heard the footsteps
of their annihilation approach the door, felt the air freeze as it swung open.
Although he felt the tachi could easily dispense with the ikkou,
it was the Sanbutsushin or retainers of Kanzeon Bosatsu who left him nervous.
They worked a little differently, a little more mysteriously. He really didn't
want to implement the strike against Tougenkyou until the last possible moment,
and he was willing to gamble that the opportunity to seize the Sutra would
arise again, since it was foreordained.

Having resolved not to challenge Sanzo in that matter yet, Homura wondered if
it might not be time to test him for weaknesses.

As if summoned, the priest appeared at the window, his hands filled with the
red-orange poppies.

"There are gods at the far end of the meadow." He swung his feet over
the sill.

"Then we must leave before they seal the gate." Homura leapt to his
feet.

"I'm not going." Sanzo dropped the flowers on the floor and started back
toward the meadow. "You bring the flowers to him."

Sanzo looked at him, the gravity of the entire world the dead-weight in his
eyes. "It wouldn't be so bad for him. Might even end up in a place like
this."

"Idiot! He won't be permitted back here for many lifetimes, or until the
stain of his crimes has been wiped away." Homura started gathering up the
flowers. Poppies did strange things to human minds, especially these ones. Bad
enough to feel the shimmering energy of heaven, against which Tougenkyou felt
like being encased in a cement coffin.

"Not my job. Not my problem." Sanzo shrugged. "I'm sick of that
place. They can carry on without me."

"You forget yourself, Konzen." Homura stood up and grabbed Sanzo's
arm before he could disappear through the window again. "You were sick of
this place when you were last here, too. Seems like you'll be sick of places no
matter where you are."

"Let go of me!" The priest tried to shake him off. He might've been
scrawny, but his muscles were hard and firm, whipcord, although nothing to
match Homura for strength.

"Fine, you want to try out your newfound detachment? Try walking away when
you're back down there," the war god said with a sly smile, teleporting
them back.

x.

A second inhibitor had been removed from Hakkai's ear by the time Homura and
Sanzo returned. The faint outlines of vines faded in and out against his skin,
which had grown white and bluish.

Sanzo had to remind Gojyo to replace the inhibitors just as they were about to
daub the paste of crushed poppies under his tongue. Within a minute, the man's
breathing became deeper and slower, his skin changed to its usual colour, and
his eyes stopped glowing.

There was even enough paste left to cure Gojyo's bout of food poisoning. Sadly,
there wasn't enough to cure him of his bickering with Goku or the recklessness
that put him in that position in the first place. As they started up again,
Sanzo wondered briefly if it wouldn't have been better just to have let him
suffer.

The general idea behind karma was that people were supposed to learn from it,
and suffering was usually part of that. Enough suffering and, eventually, a
person was supposed to learn not to do the stupid things that caused it. That
was how it worked in theory, anyway.

Except for one bloody thing, Sanzo bitched at the goads in his head, no one
ever remembers why the karma comes round to bite them. That's what kept
everyone trapped. How was a person supposed to learn how not to create karma,
if they kept forgetting how they created it? Instead of learning, it was like
the universe kept sending random, brutal, inexplicable whacks out of the blue.
All for nothing. One big cosmic game of baccarat which never stopped spinning
and all a person could do was hang on for dear life, while dear life beat the
crap out of him. Not even the gods were exempt.

The next thing Sanzo considered was that he must've had one helluva past
lifetime to incur the karma he had to go through in this one and how did that
happen? Of course, in the monastery, they taught him that karma didn't just end
at the limits of an individual's personality. If they managed to dispense with
their own — an impossibility, since even breathing had consequences — but, say
for argument's sake, they managed to get rid of their personal share, then they
got to resolve some of the bigger stuff: the karma of their birth-tribes, their
nations, their gender, their continents and species, even of the entire world.
As a sanzo, that was where he had got stuck: in the world karma clearance
department. Oh joy! Oh bliss!

It really could be worse. If he was a god, he would have to handle
interdimensional levels of karma clearing.

The next realization Sanzo had was that Homura and his two sidekicks had
buggered off. He couldn't make his heavenly getaway after all. Wasn't that just
a piece of genius!

"Bastard!" He kicked Hakkai, who was still prone and recovering.

"Son of a bitch!" He kicked him again.

"Cocksucking mutherfu–" He found his foot held in a painfully tight
grip.

"While I'm grateful to you for saving my life, Sanzo, if you want to keep
your foot attached to your body," Hakkai helped put the karma question all
back into perspective for him, "I suggest you stop this immediately."

xi.

He didn't expect to see Homura again. Not for a long while, anyway. Not until
this big showdown he was planning with Goku that was supposed to happen in the
future sometime. He certainly wasn't planning on seeing him out behind the
chaparral at the far end of the plateau — since Shien had pretty much totalled
their hotel, they were back to camping — nor so soon after their last
encounter.

"What do you want?" Sanzo growled. "Is it time for our fight
yet?"

"Not yet," Homura looked over Sanzo's shoulder. It seemed that the
campfire around which the other ikkou lay was too close. He turned on
his heels and started walking up a narrow ravine. Sanzo had too much experience
on the receiving end of ambushes to follow him just like that.

Homura glanced back and said, "If you're curious, you'll just have to come
and find out."

Well, damn! Sanzo considered, weighing good sense against his curiosity.
Usually good sense prevailed. Tonight must've been a weird phase of the moon.
Or maybe some lingering effects from those poppies in the heavenly fields.

As it turned out, that was sort of what Homura wanted to talk him about.

When they managed to climb up enough that they could see the plateau stretching
beyond the canyon, yet still see the bonfire of the ikkou twinkling
under their feet, Homura finally sat down and said, "So, you're still
looking for a way out, Konzen."

xii.

Homura broke the chain between his manacles when he decided to avenge Rinrei's
fall from heaven on the very gods themselves. The weight of the world was
unbroken, however. It still acted as an inhibitor, restricting the full
manifestation of his power.

Homura removed one of his cuffs. Sanzo froze, in an instinctive reaction to the
danger of this moment. Homura's right eye started to glow, golden as the sun.
His lips curled in a feral smile, a chthonic force rippling up through his feet
up his spine, replacing part of his measure and reason, unbalanced as they
already were.

Sanzo started to back away, tempted to invoke the Seitan Sutra, to see if it
had any effect over the forces of nature uncoiling through a god. Homura's leap
toward him was so lightning fast he could barely perceive it, let alone prepare
a reaction to it, aside from his heart leaping into his throat.

Homura grabbed both of Sanzo's wrists in one hand and clipped the single
manacle over them. He stretched them up and backwards so that the priest was
forced to arch further and further. Then, when he was stretched as far back as
he could go without losing his balance, Homura released the chain and it fell
to earth, dragging the priest down with it. He landed heavily on his back, the
force of his fall knocking the wind out of him. Sanzo's ordinary mortal limbs
had no power to lift or even move the handcuffs and chains. He was effectively
pinned beneath their weight, the weight of the world's gravity.

"Now, Konzen, do you begin to understand?" Homura chuckled at the
sight of the incapacitated priest, kicking and thrashing and trying to
somersault backwards into a less vulnerable position, but unable to do so
without breaking his own wrists.

"Bastard, let me go!"

"In time," the taishi laughed. "You think you had no part
in your own expulsion from Heaven? You want to be rid of the heretic and Field
Marshal Tenpou and General Kenren? Leave them behind? — It's simple enough:
just walk away."

"Fine, I've got it," Sanzo snarled. "Now let me go."

Homura knelt at his side and bent down to murmur in his ear. "It's the
same principle, Konzen. Just walk away."

Sanzo strained and pulled until his body was covered with perspiration. He
could no further drag his body from its bondage than he could shift the planet
from its position in the heavens.

"If I left you here, you would be thoroughly stuck, wouldn't you?"
Homura started to laugh again, which brought a renewed effort from the priest.
"It's quite a come-down from the service of the Merciful Goddess or the
Palace of the Merciful God, isn't it?"

Again, quick as lightning, Homura dropped to a semi-reclining position next to
the bound man, "Here, let's give you something to help you remember a
little more clearly."

Too late Sanzo noticed the freshly picked poppies. Homura made short work of
them, forcing them past his lips and around the back of his clenched teeth.
Sanzo made ready to spit it out when Homura moved again, this time looming over
Sanzo, straddling his thighs, forcibly trapping the movement of his lower body
under his weight. One of the taishi's hand clapped over Sanzo's mouth,
the other held his nose plugged until the only thing Sanzo could do was
swallow.

"Bastard!" He shouted between heaved breaths, after Homura removed
his hands. The flowers left a strange taste in his mouth, thick and somewhat
bitter, but not unpleasant. The unpleasantness was all about the use of force.

"Here's a memory from this very lifetime, Konzen," Homura had leaned
over right next to his ear to speak. "When I offered you the chance, you
turned me down."

He slid a hand under Sanzo's kesa, over the black silk-knit tank top,
over the torso, damp with exertion.

Sanzo froze, alarmed at this new development, although the taishi didn't
even seem aware of the intimacy of his touch.

Homura pressed his fingers against the firm, well-cut muscles of Sanzo's
abdomen, probing both their strength and their flexibility, massaging them.

"Don't you remember? It was a good offer, a chance to escape this world,
to create a world without corruption. You wanted no part of it. You seemed to
feel that I would carry the corruption into it with me.

"That was an interesting idea, Konzen, that we carry our own corruption
with us. That way it mimics karma, as though we have something like choice in
the matter. It shows me how much you've forgotten. Sometimes, the things that
happen to us have nothing to do with us, and you need to remember that. You
need to remember what happened when you were divine."

Sanzo stopped listening. He was not used to being held down, least of all by
another man. The overwhelming closeness of Homura and his infernal touching was
obviously an aspect of the youkai force moving through him, something he wasn't
entirely aware that he was doing. Sanzo realized that reasoning would have no
effect under this situation.

The monk took a long, shuddering breath. His mouth seemed to be producing a lot
more moisture than usual. He swallowed hard. Strange things were happening to
his body as unfamiliar muscles contracted and released and energy rushed around
in peculiar ways, sometimes filling his limbs with a strange languor, sometimes
with a need to stretch. He was also experiencing bizarre visions, visions which
seemed more real than the world he was living in: Hakkai with long hair,
wearing a lab coat like that weird Dr. Nii; Gojyo with short hair, dyed black,
and still with the cruddy taste in clothing; Goku with long hair, manacles and
broken chains around his wrists and ankles just like Homura's, just like before
he met Sanzo; and an unknown man with an unnaturally white complexion, pink
eyes and scales. There also seemed to be a lot of blood everywhere. Just as
quickly as they flashed into his mind, the images would disappear, especially
if he tried to focus on them.

Sanzo shook his head and focused on the present, on where he was, no matter how
uncomfortable the situation felt. Homura hadn't drugged him to induce those
visions out of kindness.

With the return of his mind to the moment, he became aware of new things: the
sudden warmth in a region of his body which he liked to keep cool or at least
at an even temperature with the rest of his trunk. Then there was the friction,
because Homura kept shifting and moving as Sanzo tried to buck him off, and
there was a lot of rubbing. He also seemed acutely aware of the smell, a musky,
grassy, mossy smell probably from whatever patch of forest he last lay upon.
His senses had become more acute, heightened, extending around him in a
dizzying fashion, and his body was responding to this stimulation as though it
was pleasure.

All of a sudden, Homura noticed his captive's reactions as well. Sanzo figured
it was kind of hard not to notice a man's erection when you were practically
sitting on it. He wanted to shout that it was just his stupid, animal body,
that it responded in moments like this of its own volition and that it had nothing
to do with Homura.

The war god, it seemed, was more fascinated, than offended. In fact, the war
god did not look offended at all. He gripped Sanzo's chin in between a thumb
and forefinger and forced the priest to look him in the eye. Sanzo would've done
anything to avoid this. His face burned with molten shame.

It seemed Sanzo's discomfort caused Homura to change his mind. Without a word,
without another glance at the priest, he stood up, picked up the chain, and
unloosed the shackle from his wrist, clipping it back over his. He stepped away
from the priest, allowing him to leave.

But Sanzo wasn't finished yet. Or maybe Sanzo wasn't entirely in his right mind
yet. His body seemed to be filled with something potent and delicious,
something which felt like superhuman strength. At any rate, without thinking,
acting purely on impulse, Sanzo pulled the hilt of Homura's sword from his
belt. It flared to life.

Homura was too shocked and surprised to react, firstly that the priest had
taken his weapon so easily, and secondly, that the weapon burned with a flame
in his hands. This was not supposed to have happened. It took a special sort of
initiation to wield a weapon like that. How had a human priest managed it?

Then Sanzo did another unexpected thing. He took the sword and, with all his
strength, instead of killing Homura, drove it into the mountainside. The rock
melted under the fire and it sank into the stone up to the hilt. Then as Sanzo
released the hilt, the fire went out, and the red glowing stone crystallized
around the tang of the sword, trapping it completely. He backed away from the
mountainside, his eyes filled with defiance.

Homura laughed.

"Do you think that's all it takes to disarm me?" he reached over to
grasp the hilt. He felt the fire flow up through his spine and out of the palm
of his hand to render the blade live once again. In its prison of obsidian, the
fire started to melt the rock once again. As the stone turned liquid, he pulled
the hilt free and held the blade up to examine it, to see how it had been
transformed under Sanzo's touch. Subtle weapons were always changed.

Homura didn't notice that, as he held up the blade, the ends of his chains were
dangling in the molten rock, rock that was rapidly cooling again into solidity.
He didn't notice until he turned to face Sanzo, and discovered that his
shackles were now embedded in that pillar of stone and he couldn't pull away.

He certainly tried. He wrenched and heaved at the chains, hoping to break them
with the same force of will he had used before, but there wasn't enough
leverage and he only succeeded in knocking the hilt of his sword out of his own
grasp. As it tumbled to the ground, and Homura twisted and tried to lunge for
it, he shivered and crumbled the very stone path beneath his feet, so that a
section of it sheered away. He didn't dare risk breaking away more of the path
so that he was hanging off a cliff. At least he still had a shelf under his
feet.

Homura couldn't believe this. He was trapped. Sanzo had completely turned the
tables on him. He looked up at the priest, who stood there, staring in
disbelief, as though he had finally won something at a rigged game of baccarat.

"Tche!"

Homura knew it would be pointless to ask for release. He was not Son Goku.

"Idiot!" Sanzo stepped forward and shoved him in the middle of his
chest. It wasn't a particularly strong push, but Homura felt the fire of anger
flare up in him all the same. "The power of a god, and he still whines
about how everybody's doing it to him."

Sanzo stepped up closer. Too close. He was right in Homura's face. The man's
pupils were so wide and black, they seemed to take up an abnormally large space
in his eyes. Homura realized with a start that he was high. His head was
flying, intoxicated on the juice of the poppies which Homura had forced onto
him. He felt some discomfort at realizing he had brought at least part of this
upon himself, that this was not the priest's normal pattern of thinking or
behaviour. If it was in his nature, or part of his past archetype as the god,
Konzen, then it had been buried deeply, and Homura had done his best to uncover
those secret influences.

"So now he's decided to do it to everyone else first," Sanzo snarled.
"Is that it?"

Homura felt rather than saw Sanzo fumbling at his waist. He lurched, trying to
pull away, the surprise and shock of this attack causing his movements to be
reactive and feeble.
Soon, his movements further hampered as his jeans were yanked partly down his
legs.

"Stop this! Stop with your–" Was that a nervous giggle? He did not
just let out such a humiliating sound! Homura's lower body was used to being
confined in thick black denim with solid stitching, firm like body armour. The
brush of fresh air and cool breezes blowing between his thighs was new and too
vulnerable. His body reacted to the exposure of it alone, his balls
contracting.

Then he felt something warm cupping his groin and tried to jerk his body away,
wordless with disbelief, but still letting out the sounds of shock — somehow.

Sanzo's hand was playing with his cock, alternating stroking and squeezing it,
pulling on the length.

"What are you–? Stop that, what are–?" He was growing, stiffening,
his will and emotions subverted by the sensations of his body.

"What's the matter, War god?" Sanzo growled in his ear. "Don't
like it when somebody plays with you? Only like it when you're doing it to
someone else?"

"What the hell are you talking about? I didn't molest you."

"Seems you've got a bit of a short memory," Sanzo kept up with the
stroking, occasionally sweeping his thumb over the tip. The blood rushed to
that part of Homura's body, and it felt pleasurable in a strange, twisted way.
He was wildly uncomfortable and, yet, also in the throes of a very decadent
sort of comfort. His head tilted back as heat flooded into his face, and Sanzo
snarled something else at him, something he didn't quite catch as he was too
caught up in the humiliation and, yes, fury.

Homura felt fingers slide under his chin, pulling it to the side so that he was
forced to look at the place where they first sat when they finished climbing up
to this outcropping.

"Look over there," Sanzo told him. "Do you see what I'm
seeing?"

Homura shook his head. He didn't know what the priest was trying to show him.

Sanzo released him, walking over to the spot and reaching down to pick up …
poppies! Some of the poppies he had brought from heaven had spilled over the
ground. Suddenly, Homura understood what Sanzo had been talking about.

Once he gathered up the few remaining flowers, Sanzo plucked off a fistful of
petals, crushing them in his fingers. If he thought he would be able to stuff
those into his mouth, the war god thought, he had another thing coming. Homura
was still bigger and so much more powerful than the priest. He may have been
hampered by the shackles which tied him to the mountain, but there was no way
Sanzo had the strength to stuff those crushed petals between his lips.

Sanzo didn't even try to reach up and grab Homura's jaw.

Instead, he reached down, between the war god's legs. Homura froze in shock. A
thick finger pushed inside him from behind, smearing him with mashed petals. He
could feel it probing at the ring of muscles and pushing through. At the same
time, Sanzo's other hand started to stroke Homura's flagging erection.

"S-sstop!" he hissed, writhing, trying to pull away from the invasive
touches, but it was useless. The finger twisted and circled, stretched and
pulled at him, and his cock, again stiff and straining upward, was firmly
rubbed in a sheath of warm fingers — fingers that lifted and pulled with just
the right pressure to feel thrills of energy and heat moving up from the base
of his spine, through his body.

There was a seductive allure to being bound like this. Homura's head snapped up
at this insight. The emotional pull was to remain captive, because then he
wasn't responsible, then he didn't have to assume the full burden of
consequences for his actions. He could do nothing about his predicament,
nothing to stop what was happening to him. Since he wasn't burdened by the full
responsibility, his body was liberated to experience, to simply accept what was
being done to him.

But he had hated his years of captivity under the Jade Emperor. When he was
finally released from the dungeons, he had thought he was finally free, only to
find himself held in a different sort of confinement, one which dictated how he
was to serve the Emperor, how he was to behave, even who he was to love.

The effect of the priest's touches on his body were — unwelcome, to be certain,
but still, strangely sublime. His yammering pulse thundered in his ears. The
silken knit of his sleeveless shirt rubbed against his nipples which had grown
into rock-hard, painfully sensitive nubs. He let out a long, slow, deep
"aaahh" without knowing it. He only heard the sound when his breath
was almost gone and he saw Sanzo staring at him.

Then Sanzo added another finger, more of the paste.

At first this felt too full, too stretched. His sigh of pleasure turned into a
sharp inhale of tension, but Sanzo picked up the pace and pressure of his
strokes, shifting his focus to the front.

Homura tried to get a grip, which, with Sanzo's fingers from one hand stuffed
up his ass, and the other firm around his cock, wasn't the easiest thing in the
world to do.

There was the added sting of knowing that none of this would've happened if he
hadn't forced drugs down Sanzo's throat in an ill-conceived bid to tempt him,
yet again, with his plans for a new world, thinking that his knowledge of Sanzo's
weakness meant that Sanzo would let himself be ruled by that weakness.

This could be much worse, Homura understood. Sanzo was not the Jade Emperor.
Sanzo had not been one of the gods who had plotted Rinrei's downfall or
subsequent violent death. Sanzo might be an obstacle, but as enemies went, not
the personal sort of enemy that Homura despised so deeply and with every fiber
in his core, that outrage that forced him to shake the very world apart.

Other waves of energy swept through his body now, and he had the dull sense
that they were connected to the poppies. Homura had thought the poppies would
have a numbing effect, like the opiate medicines of Tougenkyou, but he was
mistaken. Instead they seemed to make him more acutely sensitive, every experience
of touch heightened as nerves snapped and sparkled. More energy surged up his
arms from the palms of his hands.

He started to rock himself back onto the fingers and forward, thrusting into
Sanzo's palm. His ass was twitching and clenching, alternately pushing out and
releasing. He could feel it stretching wider and the crushed petals were
ridiculously soft and luxurious and made thick, sticky sounds as he slipped
back and forth over the fingers. His voice let out soft moans which seemed to
come from the center of his chest.

Homura legs stiffened and his back arched, but Sanzo stopped moving his hand
over his cock and gripped it tightly around the base instead. Homura tried to
thrust into the ring of fingers, but Sanzo simply pulled them away. He felt simultaneously
empty and wound up like a wire about to snap.

"Ah, don't–!" he cried out.

"Don't what?" Sanzo's voice was next to his ear again.

Don't make me beg, he was about to plead, clutching at that one last
straw of dignity, but the only thing that came out of his mouth were useless
pants of breath. It didn't matter. Sanzo slid down the length of his body and
helped him lift one leg free of his jeans. With one sweep of the tongue, he
licked along the meridian of nerve endings inside his thigh from his knee to
his groin. Then he licked up along the shaft and took Homura's cock into his
mouth.

Warmth and wetness closed around him and he slid his cock over Sanzo's tongue.
Again he felt the fingers moving at his ass, but this curling forward, pressing
deep and inward, until —"Aaahh!"

He came on the spot, rocking into Sanzo's mouth, shooting spurts of come down
his throat. Sanzo suckled and swallowed and swallowed some more and again,
until he milked every last drop. Then, as Homura felt the waves of release
draining through his body, he was turned and bent as far over as he could go,
his forearms braced against the cold rock, and Sanzo pushed into his ass and
fucked him. Hard.

And long. Long enough for him to become accustomed to the feeling of that hard
cock thrusting in and out of him, often rubbing up against his prostrate. Long
enough that he could feel his cock twitching slowly back to life, so that he
started to swing his hips trying to find something soft to rub it against. Long
enough that his legs started to tremble, his attention narrowed to that cock
pumping into him.

At some point he must've let out an inarticulate plea, because he felt Sanzo's
hand close around his cock again, but this time he had to move his pelvis,
fucking Sanzo's fingers on every foreward stroke and impaling himself on his
cock with every backward stroke. His thoughts weren't too coherent at that
point. He had difficulty even to stand. And when he came, it was the last fully
conscious thought he had that night.

xiii.

When Homura awoke, he found himself curled in a ball at the foot of the rock
where he had fallen asleep. It was already midmorning, from the position of the
sun. Sanzo had released him from the rock, although in order to do this, he had
push the fiery sword back into its scabbard of stone. That was easy enough to
rectify.

The ikkou would be long gone by now. He could probably catch up with
them later on the road west. He knew where they were headed.

Slowly, he rose to his feet. His ass and lower back hurt, as did his wrists,
but not unbearably, not like his pride. Worse, his jeans had been hitched back
up and refastened, but he had not been washed, so his whole bottom itched
something fierce. He would have to find a spring where he could cleanse himself.

He tried not to think about the events of the evening, but found himself
teetering in the midst of so much confusion, between anger at what had happened
to him and the burden of having drugged a man against his will, between the
shame of being at the mercy of his body and the realization that he could've
been left in a far worse state. The usual modus operandi of enemies
would've been to drive the sword through his heart when he was asleep and to
leave him there, chained to the mountain and fully exposed, the signs of what
had happened to him obvious for everyone to see. Sanzo had done none of that,
although Homura didn't know if he could forgive him for what he had done.

Homura puzzled about this for a moment or two. He supposed there was a lesson
in there somewhere for him. It wasn't made clear to him exactly what that
lesson was, until he prepared to remove his sword from the rock and noticed the
swathes of marks that had been cut into it. As a god, he had had almost no
education, and his thoughts and dreams were rooted in the earthier nature of a
soldier, not of a poet or a philosopher. Still, he could read.

Sanzo had used the fiery sword to cut various letters into the slope.

"Stop seeking your oblivion," the calligraphy read.

Homura stared. At the end of the line of characters, a last celestial poppy had
been placed into the groove, still fresh, still red, like a drop of blood.

He shook his head to clear it from the last effects of the drug. The fight was
real now. Blood had been drawn.